Ruskin against the Political Economists

From "Essay I" of Unto This Last (p. 168):

Observe, I neither impugn nor doubt the conclusion of the science if its terms are accepted. I am simply uninterested in them, as I should be in those of a science of gymnastics which assumed that men had no skeletons. It might be shown, on that supposition, that it would be advantageous to roll the students up into pellets, flatten them into cakes, or stretch them into cables; and that when these results were effected, the re-insertion of the skeleton would be attended with various inconveniences to their constitution. The reasoning might be admirable, the conclusions true, and the science deficient only in applicability. Modern political economy stands on a precisely similar basis. Assuming, not that the human being has no skeleton, but that it is all skeleton, i founds an ossifant theory of progress on this negation of a soul; and having shown the utmost that may be made of bones, and constructed a number of interesting geometrical figures with death's head and humeri, successfully proves the inconvenience of the reappearance of a soul among these corpuscular structures. I do not deny the truth of this theory: I simply deny its applicability to the present phase of the world.

Ruskin on Tower Building

From Lecture I on Architecture and Painting, a definitive statement on tower building:

The first tower of which we hear as built upon the earth, was certainly built in a species of aspiration; but I do not suppose that any one here will think it was a religious one. "Go to now. Let us build a tower whose top may reach unto Heaven." From that day to this, whenever men have become skilful architects at all, there has been a tendency in them to build high; not in any religious feeling, but in mere exuberance of spirit and power - as they dance or sing - with a certain mingling of vanity - like the feeling in which a child builds a house of cards; and, in nobler instances, with also a strong sense of, and delight in the majesty, height, and strength of the building itself, such as we have in that of a lofty tree tree or a peaked mountain. Add to this instinct the frequent necessity of points of elevation for watch-towers, or of points of offence, as in towers built on the ramparts of cities, and, finally, the need of elevations fir the transmission of sound, as in the Turkish minaret and Christian belfry, and you have, I think, a sufficient explanation of the tower-building of the world in general.

Blue John

When Ruskin refers to "fluor spa" I suspect he is referring to the following, which is from the wikipedia entry for "fluorite":

One of the most famous of the older-known localities of fluorite is Castleton in Derbyshire, England, where, under the name of Derbyshire Blue John, beautiful purple-blue fluorite was extracted from the Blue John Cavern. It was used for ornamental purposes, especially in the 19th century. The name derives from French "bleu et jaune" (blue and yellow) characterising its colour. It is now scarce, and only a few hundred kilograms are mined each year for ornamental and lapidary use. Recent deposits in China have produced fluorite with similar colouring and banding to the classic Blue John stone.

The entry for "Blue John Cavern" has this to say about the name:

The name is popularly said to come from the French; bleu-jaune, meaning 'blue-yellow'. It is a fact that some Blue John was indeed sent to France for gilding by the French Ormolu workers of the Louis XVI period. However, they were emulating the pionerring ormolu ornaments of Matthew Boulton of Birmingham who around 1765 called the stone 'Blew John'. It became such a popular base for the ornaments that Boulton tried to lease the whole output of the Castleton mines.

On Purple and Yellow

More Ruskin (from Modern Painters Vol. I, Part II, Sec II, Ch. II):

I think the first approach to viciousness in any master is commonly indicated chiefly by a prevalence of purple, and an absence of yellow. I think nature mizes yellow with almost every one of her hues, never, or very rarely, using red without it, but frequently using yellow with scarcely any red; and I believe it will be in consequence found that her favourite opposition, that which generally characterizes and gives tone to her colour, is yellow and black, passing, as it retires, into white and blue. It is beyond dispute that the great fundamental opposition of Rubens is yellow and black; and that on this, concentrated in one part of the picture, and modified in various greys throughout, chiefly depend the tones of all his finest works. And in Titian, though there is a far greater tendency to purple than in Rubens, I believe no red is ever mixed with the pure blue, or glazed over it, which has not in it a modifying quantity of yellow. At all events I am nearly certain that whatever rich and pure purples are introduced locally, by the great colourists, nothing is so destructive of all fine colour as the slightest tendency to purple in general tone; and I am equally certain that Turner is distinguished from all the vicous coloursists of the present day, by the foundation of all his tones being black, yellow, and the intermediate greys, while the tendency of our common glare-seekers is invariably to cold, impossible pruples.

The Nobility of Color

Ruskin:

Of all God's gifts to the sight of man, color is the holiest, the most divine, the most solemn...

The Color of the Sea

Ruskin:

Waves of clear sea are, indeed, lovely to watch, but are always coming or gone...the ever-answering glow of unearthly aquamarine, ultramarine, violet-blue, gentian-blue, peacock-blue, river-of-paradise blue, glass of a painted windowmelted in the sun and the witch of the Alps flinging the spun tresses of it for ever from her snow.